The invention concerns a "breathing" lining material having a shaping effect, especially for articles of clothing. The lining material combines the properties of conventional linings and interfacings such that only a single textile sheet material needs to be incorporated into the article of clothing.
It is common to provide interfacing materials in articles of clothing which need to be stiffened. Particularly desirable for this purpose are fixative interfacings, i.e., interfacings which have an adhesive on the surface and thus can be bonded tightly to the face material. Additionally, a lining material is also incorporated for the purpose of improving the wearing properties.
Fixative interfacings consist usually of nonwoven fabric. Random fiber nonwovens and oriented fiber nonwovens are known, as are combinations of both types of nonwovens. The function of an interfacing consists, for example, of shaping the front of an article of clothing, equalizing fatigue phenomena in the facing material, preventing deformation of the article which may be caused by wearing and by chemical cleaning, and smoothing wrinkles and creases which might form in the face material due to wearing stresses. The interfacing must therefore have a certain minimum bulk, a soft, textile feel, good shaping power and recovery capacity, and a great ability to adapt its shrinkage characteristics to the face material. The nonwoven fabric can provide these properties to a great extent if the fibers, the binding agent and the technique used in laying up the fibers are appropriately adapted to the purpose for which the face material is to be used as well as to the face material itself.
The lining material has entirely different purposes in an article of clothing. It is to be as dense and smooth as possible so as to enable the article of clothing to be put on and taken off easily, slipping easily over the underclothing or the skin, and yet producing as little friction as possible. The smooth and dense surface of the lining must furthermore protect the interfacing and the face material against wear, and yet it must have an esthetically pleasing appearance.
It has been found disadvantageous that the lining materials used hitherto have physiologically undesirable characteristics in regard to clothing. The feeling of comfort in clothing is due to the microclimate between the skin and the outer garments. This, in turn, depends largely on the humidity of the air in the particular area. The humidity of the air must be assured by a high degree of moisture transport (sweat transport) through all layers of the clothing. The transport of moisture takes place in a textile material mainly on the surface of the fibers, resulting in a wick effect. This effect is produced all the better the more greatly the fibers are oriented in the transport direction, i.e., perpendicularly to the body surface. Textiles lend themselves poorly to moisture transport when they consist, not of fibers, but of endless filaments, and when the filaments are of a highly bidirectional orientation. This, however, is the case with conventional woven or knit lining materials, which do lie smoothly on the skin or undergarments, but have more or less great deficiencies with regard to moisture transport.
In the transport of moisture, furthermore, the distance between the different textile layers, i.e., for example the distance between the face material, the interfacing and the lining, reduces the amount of diffused water vapor, thus increasing the humidity of the microclimate and having a negative influence on the feeling of comfort.
A sandwich of several layers and a reduction of the distance between these layers is thus bound to produce an improvement and acceleration of moisture transport, improve the microclimate at the surface of the skin, and increase the feeling of comfort.